• Published 4th Jan 2012
  • 7,242 Views, 603 Comments

Fallout Equestria: The Daily Unlife - Nyerguds



"Live a little, they say. Easier said than done." Lemon Frisk, a 220-year-old Canterlot ghoul, leaves Stable One looking for the Meaning of Unlife.

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Day Eight - The Time of Your Life


DAY EIGHT
The Time of Your Life
gone with the blastwave

~~~

"Oh, stop fidgeting, dear!" the pink-maned mare said, nudging her husband with her muzzle.

"What? You can hardly blame me for being excited!" Lemon Frisk said. "Imagine the possibilities! It's a return to youth! The toys, the games... ooh, I'll get the chance to reread Daring Do!"

Blossom Tree sighed and shook her head. She couldn't help but smile, though. "It sounds like you're more excited about the toys and stories than you are about the baby itself."

Lemon Frisk gave her a sad look. "Am not!" His smile reappeared way too fast. "But I'm totally goin' to read her Daring Do!"

Blossom Tree laughed. It was a shrill sound that might've sounded annoying to some ponies, but Lemon Frisk couldn't help but like it. She raised an eyebrow. "Her? It could just as well be a colt, you know. A colt who might not even care about all those marely adventures."

"Come on. Everypony likes Daring Do."

"Back when we were kids, maybe. She's rather old, now," Blossom said, teasingly.

"Fictional characters don't age!" Lemon threw back. "Only their fans."

"Yes, well, for the first few months after this little one is born, all you'll be reading is Daring Do and the Crying Baby."

Lemon Frisk grinned. "Ohh. I can imagine her trying to handle that."

Blossom Tree mimicked his grin. She was quite used to her husband's antics. "Do tell!"

"By the end of the book," Lemon said, his grin getting even wider, "she flees into the wilderness, and hugs the first wild manticore she meets!"

He was rewarded by another shrill laugh. The other ponies in the doctor's waiting room were giving them odd looks. He honestly couldn't care less.

~~~

"Do you know you sleep with your eyes open?" Misty asked.

Lemon Frisk blinked, and the vision of the white waiting room was replaced with the bright blue of Misty Cloud's eyes.

"Good mornin' to you too," he said. All things considered, he didn't think this was a bad way of waking up. He had expected to get poked again.

"Good?" She sighed, and looked at the bedroom door. "Somehow, I keep ending up in this place. It's like I can't escape it."

"You're free to camp outside the Door. As I suggested yesterday evening."

Misty didn't reply. She just gave him a flat look, and poked him in the side. As she'd done the previous evening. Lemon Frisk grinned, successfully suppressing a yelp.

"So," he said, "what time is it?"

"Breakfast time," Misty answered with a smile.

Lemon Frisk once again abused his poor left eyebrow. "You woke me up for breakfast? I may have figured out I can sleep, but I still don't eat, you know."

"It's a family thing!" she said. "It's not just about the food."

"Says the mare who's trying to get the hell away from her family."

Misty's head slumped down. "You're still too good at that."

"Talking about family, I do hope you're intending to take your cousin up on his offer."

Misty rolled her eyes. "Yeah, yeah. I know. I'm a poor shot, I panic when I get charged by a pack of ghouls, and I collapse the building I'm in when I panic. Did I miss anything?"

"No, that about sums it up," Lemon said, "though in all fairness, I'd imagine most ponies would display a certain degree of panic when they get charged by a pack of feral ghouls." He got up from the bed. "The collapsing thing worked, at least. Just, next time, there may not be a convenient swimming pool outside the window. Or a companion with Winter Gale's reflexes to push you into it."

Misty smiled, and opened the bedroom door. "Just get your leathery rump out here."

* * *

During breakfast, the conversation inevitably shifted to the events of the previous day. The exciting mission was the talk of the Stable, and Hailstorm and Moonstorm were quite interested in hearing how their daughter had fared in it.

"Wait. You tried to select it as weapon in S.A.T.S.?!" Lemon Frisk asked, giving her a baffled look. "The whole house?"

Misty Cloud took another bite from her apple, and nodded. "Mhm," she said. before taking the time to chew her food properly. She swallowed it, and continued her story. "Just like the rock. I just grabbed the whole thing with my magic, and targeted it at the ghouls."

Lemon Frisk laughed. "So it didn't collapse!" he said. "It actually imploded!"

"Well, no. It gave me an error, which made me panic even more, and I just sort of ripped it all loose. I think I somehow even selected the charging ghoul as projectile, in the end."

Lemon shook his head and smiled. "I can't believe it accepted that."

"I don't think it did; that was around the time everything came crashing down. Winter Gale must've grabbed me and pulled me out the window. Next thing I knew, I was coughing up green sludge."

"Sounds like the three of you had quite the adventure," Moonstorm said.

Lemon Frisk nodded. "Not exactly the way I'd prefer to get it done, mind you. If I'd been able to take them out from behind as we'd planned, this might've gone quite differently. And then there's that blue glow..." He shook his head. "I don't know what to make of that. Never heard of anything like it."

Misty frowned. "What do you mean? The Shard also glowed like that. I saw it in the distance."

Lemon nodded. "That's the thing. The balefire that destroyed Equestria was green. When we got out of the Stable, and looked in the direction of any major city, we saw a green glow. All magical radiation you find in the wastelands is green. I never even heard of blue radiation before I saw the Shard, and now it's here again." He sighed, and shook his head.

Misty shrugged. "Still, to us non-ghouls, I expect the colour doesn't change the basic fact we should stay the hell away from it, right?"

Lemon blinked. "Oh. Yeah, obviously."

"So, what's the escape plan for today?" Hailstorm asked, grinning.

Misty shot her dad a dirty look. "I'm getting lessons at the firing range. After that, uh, I dunno." She looked at Lemon Frisk.

Lemon frowned. "I think I'd like to go back to the base. I never got to visit my friends' graves, after all."

"It's really that important to you, huh?" Misty asked.

Lemon hesitated. "I... I dunno, okay? Everything I knew is gone. I just want to see what's left. At least the dead should still be there."

"That's pretty morbid," Misty said, raising an eyebrow.

Lemon cracked a smile. "...she said to the ghoul."

Misty rolled her eyes, and stood up from the table. "I'm done. Let's get to the firing range."

* * *

"Hi," Winter Gale greeted them as they walked into the armoury. He gave them an unusually confident smirk. "I found something neat in the maneframe."

Lemon Frisk and Misty Cloud followed him into the room labelled "Shooting Range". The room was mostly just a long corridor, with metal curtains covering the actual firing lanes that were at one side of the corridor.

Winter pushed a button, and the curtains rolled up, making surprisingly little noise as they did so. Behind them, at the end of each lane, they could see cardboard cutouts with prints of slightly cartoony looking ponies with rotted faces and cracked open skulls.

"What do you think?" he asked, beaming. "Freshly printed!"

Misty peered intently at the cardboard cutouts. "Ghouls?"

Lemon Frisk shook his head. "This is pre-war. Good old-fashioned gnaw-your-skull-and-eat-your-brains zombies."

Misty frowned, and shook her head. "You know, I never got that, really," she said.

Lemon Frisk raised his eyebrow. "What?"

"Well, zombies," she said. "The traditional zombie plague concept. It just doesn't make sense."

Lemon gave her an amused smile. "Do tell."

"Right," Misty started. "So, zombies eat brains, right?"

"Uhuh."

"And... their victims become zombies too, right?"

"That's how it's told, yes."

"And, nothing really kills a zombie, except blowing its brains out."

Lemon nodded. "Or smashing them with a shovel, or something."

"Yes," Misty said, looking at the cardboard cutouts. "Hooves, legs, chest, their entire back side... you can blow it all off and they'll still keep coming. It has to be the head. More specifically, the brain."

She looked at Lemon Frisk again. "So if zombies need their brain mostly-intact, how can their brain-eaten victims still become zombies?"

Lemon Frisk blinked. "Huh. I never thought about that."

"That's the whole problem, see," Misty said, shaking her head. "No one really does. The whole premise is silly, if you just think about it for a minute."

"Well, in some stories ponies just get bitten and become zombies," Lemon said.

"Well yeah, but that's the zombie plague as disease thing," Misty said, rolling her eyes. "Traditionally it's more of a curse thing. You know, necromantic stuff."

"Um, excuse me..." Winter Gale said. The whole conversation had clearly ruined his previous confidence at finding a somewhat topical set of targets. "Weren't you going to, um, shoot them?"

Misty gave him an apologetic smile. "Ahh, I knew we were forgetting something. Sorry."

Winter Gale let out a weary sigh, but he seemed determined to get on with his lesson. If he was going to train a new Security Corps he'd have to do this more often anyway, so dealing with these two would clearly make a good test run.

"First of all," he said, "despite what many ponies seem to think, S.A.T.S. does not improve your aim. It only boosts your reaction speed." He walked over to the weapons locker, grabbed one of the mouth guns and put it on the firing lane table before Misty. "If you can't hit the broad side of the Stable Door, no amount of time stretching magic will help you. Because of that, we're not using S.A.T.S. in this training."

Lemon Frisk nodded. He remembered his own S.A.T.S. introduction during his military training, and it'd been about the same.

"However," Winter Gale said, looking at Misty, "it can help you calm down in situations where everything goes too fast. If you feel you're going to panic, use it, even if it's not for firing at enemies. It may save your life."

He walked back to the weapons locker, and retrieved a gun for Lemon. "Keep in mind though, S.A.T.S. needs to recharge after every use, which takes a while. It may be better to keep it for life or death situations."

"That's kind of... contradictory," Misty said.

Lemon Frisk smiled at her. "Well, you've seen how it goes. The first casualty in any battle is the battle plan. The main thing to remember is, well, that it's there, basically. That you got the option to use it. Better to use it and survive, than to try keeping it for a life or death situation without realising you're already in one."

Winter Gale looked at Lemon Frisk's pipbuck. "Does your S.A.T.S. still work?"

"Not as far as I know," the ghoul replied, glancing down at the pipbuck embedded in his leg. "I mean, it may, but the controls for actually using it are all messed up."

"I see," Winter Gale said. "Well, maybe we should drop in at Nimblegait's office, see if she can take a look at it."

"Wouldn't count on it," Lemon Frisk said. "The technicians at Stable One said it was melted too far in. There's not enough space to replace the monitor."

"Ah, well." Winter Gale looked back at the zombie cut-outs. "Anyway, let's get to the actual practice." He looked at Misty. "Now, this may seem odd to you, but we're going to start without magic. Out there, I can all too easily imagine unicorns getting magic exhaustion, and in that case, you really want to have something to fall back on."

Misty groaned. Like most unicorns, she disliked doing things by mouth which she could just do with magic. "Seriously?" she asked. "So I have to learn this all twice?"

"Remember the ghouls?" Winter Gale asked. "You lost your gun because you didn't expect the kick it would give. There's no better way to teach you what kind of force to expect than to feel it on your body."

Misty nodded. "All right then." She levitated the gun into her mouth, disabled the safety, and aimed at the target.

"Hold it," Winter Gale interrupted. "That's the perfect way to get a whiplash. Regularly firing a mouth gun trains the neck muscles against the impact. Someone without experience and training should brace for impact. Spread your legs slightly, lower your head... right. The gun's padding will absorb the shock a bit, but that just means it gets spread out more evenly. In the end, it's still your head that gets it."

Lemon Frisk nodded. "My old instructor said to treat it as if you're wearing a helmet, and getting a sledgehammer to the jaw. It won't hurt too much, because you got a helmet, and it's a mighty fine helmet, but that won't take away the fact it's a sledgehammer. It's just a lot of force, y'know?"

Misty floated the gun out of her mouth. "...you guys are just trying to scare me, aren't you?" she asked. She looked pretty nervous all of the sudden.

"You're the psychologist," Lemon Frisk said. "You figure it out."

"Right," Misty said, eyeing the paper cutout of the zombie somewhat anxiously. "Worse than what I'm expecting, but probably not that bad."

"But don't count on the 'not that bad'," Lemon Frisk added, smirking.

"Yes, yes, I know," Misty said. She sighed, bit down on the gun once more, and pulled the trigger with her tongue.

*Blam*

The shot didn't even get close to the paper zombie. Misty spat out the gun, and massaged her jaw with a hoof.

"Ow. I almost swallowed the damned thing."

Winter Gale blinked. "Right. Um. Biting down really well is kinda essential, too," he said, looking somewhat unsure. "I guess I should've, uh, said that."

* * *

It was nearing noon by the time Misty Cloud started to get the hang of it. Lemon Frisk had put away his weapon pretty quickly; all he really wanted to do was brush up his old military training. Thanks to his recent trips down memory lane, this took surprisingly little work.

"Right, that's it," Misty said. She switched on the gun's safety with her magic, and put the weapon on the table. "I'm taking a noon break, now I'm sure I can still chew."

"You'll get used to it," Winter Gale said.

"Fat chance," Misty said as she walked out of the firing range. "Out there, I'll be using my magic."

Lemon Frisk followed her outside. "Well, you did pretty well for a first time."

Misty just nodded. "Uhuh. Now it's just the panicking and throwing houses around issue then, hm?"

Lemon Frisk laughed. "A little confidence with weapons might actually help with that, you know."

"Um...."

The pair stopped when they heard a familiar voice behind them. They turned around to see Winter Gale, once again.

"Misty?" he asked. "Could we, uh... talk?"

Misty frowned. "Can't this wait until we're back at the range?"

Winter Gale stared at the floor, and shook his head.

Lemon Frisk rolled his eyes. "Misty, he's asking you to do your bloody job. So go make yourself useful."

"Oh! Right," Misty said. She followed Winter Gale, presumably to wherever her old practice was.

Lemon Frisk shook his head. For a psychologist, she could be quite bad at reading people...

* * *

Once again wandering through the Stable on his own, Lemon Frisk somehow found himself at the school again. The foals apparently just got to their noon break, and rushed out into the play ground around the school.

"You did it!" a shrill voice yelled. Lemon Frisk smiled as he saw Fog Light running towards him.

"Hey there, squirt," he said. "How's school?"

"Who cares?" the colt said, grinning. "You really did it! You killed the zombie ponies! Now they won't eat other ponies anymore! Yaay!" He looked at the other foals, who were getting over their initial fear, and were slowly surrounding the ghoul. "I told you he'd pull it off!" Fog Light said, beaming.

"Well, actually, Winter Gale helped a lot, too," Lemon Frisk started, before the hyperactive colt interrupted him again.

"So! How'd you do it?" He grinned at one of the classmates standing beside him. "I bet he bit their heads off!" he said, clearly enjoying the disgusted look on the filly's face.

Lemon Frisk's ears drooped down, and he grinned uncomfortably. "Biting heads off? Oh no, I don't do that!" he said, slowly backing up.

"Sure you do!" Fog Light said, beaming. "You're an earth pony! You do all kinds of stuff with your mouth!"

"Woooah, that's so cool!" a filly standing behind Lemon said. The ghoul yelped in surprise and stopped backing away. He noticed the foals had him completely surrounded, and threw a desperate look at Hailstorm, who was leaning against the door frame of the school entrance, apparently enjoying the show.

"Hailstorm?" Lemon called out to him. "Help?"

The red stallion chucked, and walked towards the foals. "All right now, children, give the poor stallion some breathing space."

"He don't need to breathe!" Fog Light said without missing a beat. "He's a zombie!"

"I'm a ghoul, actually," Lemon Frisk said.

Fog Light looked back at Lemon Frisk, expectantly. "Aaand...?" he said.

Lemon Frisk sighed, and his head slumped down. "And I don't need to breathe," he grumbled.

"I knew it!" the colt said, a serious look on his face.

Hailstorm gave Fog Light a flat look. "Kids... scram," he said.

The foals muttered some barely audible complaints, but immediately slunk away to the playground.

"Wow," Lemon Frisk said, clearly impressed. "That's modern teaching?"

"No, that's training," Hailstorm replied, smirking. "There are a few words I use that have very specific meanings, and they know them. 'Scram' means, 'adults need to talk, get out or those adults will include your parents'."

Lemon glanced at the kids, who were starting their usual playground games now. "Looks like you got them well-trained."

"That's half of the job," Hailstorm said. "So, how'd things go with Winter Gale?"

"Well, the training went fine. He's off to talk with Misty now. Poor guy clearly needed it. I'm surprised Misty didn't go to him sooner, actually."

Hailstorm nodded. "Those two... they've always been close, but that also means she kinda stops being a psychologist around him, you know? Hanging out with her cousin has always been a bit of a break from her work."

"Weird," Lemon Frisk said. "There's no way I could just turn off my special talent like that. I sure hope she doesn't stop acting like a psychologist around me."

"You don't need a psychologist, Lemon Frisk," Hailstorm remarked. "You just need a friend."

He walked back to the school, and glanced back to Lemon Frisk. "And I think she knows that."

* * *

Misty and Winter Gale weren't at the firing range when he returned. He hadn't really expected them to be, but had decided it'd be better to check anyway. Seeing as it was barely past noon, Lemon Frisk had no idea where to go.

In the end, he decided to check on Vector Field's progress in organising the expedition to meet up with Capsworth and Spray Paint.

As it turned out, he had had very little success getting ponies interested in the whole affair, and the fact they didn't have any security ponies to spare didn't help matters much.

"You have to help me, Lemon Frisk!" the desperate Overstallion wailed. "They simply don't seem to care about anything I say! Maybe if you could talk to them, you could change their minds!"

Lemon Frisk frowned. "I don't exactly have looks that inspire confidence, you know."

"Nonsense!" Vector said. "You brought Misty back! You clearly gained her confidence."

"Actually, she chucked a bottle at my head the moment she saw me," Lemon Frisk said dryly. "And the only reason she didn't do worse was because she didn't have a gun."

"But the Stable knows you! You're the big hero!"

"I'm no hero," Lemon Frisk said. "All I did was give you guys a book."

"Well, I've been reading it," Vector Field said. "And it doesn't seem like there are too many ponies out there that would have the decency to do even that!" He frowned. "Do those Steel Rangers really wipe out entire Stables for their tech?"

"I haven't run into them personally, but I guess they do," Lemon Frisk replied. "Last I saw, they were valiant defenders of Equestria, but that was two centuries ago."

"Scary. What should we do if they come here?"

Lemon Frisk shrugged. "Lock the door, and pray to whoever or whatever you believe in that they don't have the equipment to get through it."

Vector Field gave him an unsure look. "That's... not very comforting."

"You could always radio for help," Lemon suggested. "You never know; someone may just be crazy enough to take on a group of ponies in power armour."

Vector gave him a dry look. "Like what? Some wandering heroic Stable Security pony? Somehow, I can't see that happening."

Lemon shrugged. "Crazier things have been known to happen. So, Vector Field... how does one become Overstallion here? It's clearly not a hereditary role, or you'd have a weather name. But for an elected figure, you sure don't seem to get much respect."

"It is hereditary, actually," Vector Field said, shaking his head sadly. "But when the WRD started taking over the Stable's decisions, my father decided to name me after mother's side of the family, as a sort of protest against the fact his role was becoming so ceremonial."

Lemon Frisk nodded. "And as a result, you're the first Overstallion without a reference to Summer Rain's name. I imagine that doesn't help."

"Indeed, it doesn't. Which is why I'd be grateful if you'd help me out here."

"Well, now you brought up the safety issue... I'm not sure if it's a good idea to go out there without proper protection."

"What if you came along?" Vector Field suggested. "You survived a direct hit from a sniper rifle!"

"Well, I was planning to go into the city, and visit the graves at the Military base, actually."

"But... there's not actually a time limit on that, is there?" The Overstallion gave him an unsure, somewhat pleading look. "I really want to meet these traders while they're still there!"

Lemon Frisk sighed. He'd seen this coming a mile away, but there didn't seem to be much he could do about it. "Look, Vector... can I call you Vector?" The Overstallion nodded. "See," Lemon continued, "if I go along, I'll just somehow end up being the de facto leader, and you'll just be somepony tagging along. This isn't the way to do this. You need to take control."

"How about you tag along as security detail?" Vector asked. "Local guide, so to speak. You know the way, and the wildlife. And the non-wildlife threats."

Lemon Frisk groaned. "Ugh. Mark my words, Vector, this won't solve a damned thing." He glanced down the corridor that led towards the Door, and then back to Vector Field. "But I'll consider it. After I talk with Misty."

Vector gave him a pensive look. "What's with you two, anyway? From what I heard, you two aren't actually a couple, but you are sleeping together."

"Um... that's actually just sleeping together, you know. Nothing else."

"Regardless," Vector said with a dismissive wave of his hoof, "it may be handy for you two to get a place of your own. We still got some free homes, and it's about time Misty moved out of her parents' place."

Lemon Frisk frowned. "You, um, do realise she's not planning on staying, right?"

Vector Field nodded. "What is she doing now?"

"Talking with Winter Gale. He needed it, badly."

Vector smirked. "Taking up her old job."

"Still, she's planning on leaving," Lemon said. He wasn't too sure of himself now, though.

Vector shook his head. "Look, Misty's a grown pony; she can go if she wants. If the WRD couldn't stop her, I sure can't, either. But if you think about it, she's got a lot to come back to, here. I'm just offering you two a place to stay whenever you do come back." He smiled. "I may not have a lot to say around this place, but I can still do that."

Lemon Frisk looked at the Overstallion. Without the name to back it up, Vector Field clung to his title, and could come across as a bit desperate... but he knew the Stable. He knew his ponies, even though they practically ignored him.

The old ghoul nodded slowly. "I'll talk to Misty about it. And about the excursion."

"Thank you," Vector said, giving him a short nod. "I appreciate it."

* * *

When Lemon Frisk arrived at the 'Storm household, Misty still hadn't returned. Then again, neither had her parents; working hours simply weren't over yet. Since he didn't feel any particular desire to spook more ponies, or be the local curiosity, he just stayed there and waited.

~~~

"Daring Do, the Great Adventurer, had finally been driven over the edge! With a desperate wail, she fled the nursery, and didn't stop running until she was well into the wilderness. The wild manticore, completely baffled, looked at the sobbing pegasus that was desperately clinging to him. He patted the adventurer on the pith helmet, and, rather unsure what to do, growled: «There, there?»"

Lemon Frisk's storytelling hadn't had exactly the intended effect. Instead of enraptured by the story, his audience was fast asleep. Then again, he might have intended that after all. He could hear the distinctive sound of a suppressed snort of laughter behind him though, which almost negated that effect.

"Shh!" Lemon Frisk whispered. "He's finally asleep!"

"Sorry," Blossom Tree whispered back. "It seems I came back too late, huh? I missed it all."

Lemon Frisk quietly walked out of Lemonade Sparkle's bedroom, and softly closed the door behind him. He smiled at his wife. "You know, it's quite amazing how well that worked. Whenever he cries, I just wonder, what would Daring do?"

"And, once you figured that out?" Blossom asked.

"I tell it to the little tyke, and he shuts up and listens! It's amazing!"

"Hah!" Blossom said, making sure to keep her voice down. "I thought you'd read him the actual books. What happened to that idea?"

"Spit. Snot. A bit of vomit. And then he tried to grab the pages, probably to apply more spit to them, and possibly eat them. And then vomit that up, too, no doubt. So I thought, I can do this without the book. It's not like he'll remember the actual stories at this age."

Blossom Tree smiled. "Pity. They sounded amazing."

~~~

Misty looked at the ghoul standing in front of her door, a pensive look on her face. Normally, she'd just give him a poke to wake him up, but something about his face made her hesitate. He looked... happy, with a odd tinge of melancholy. And she wasn't really in a poking mood. The conversation with Winter Gale had obviously had some effect on her. The last thing she needed right now was Lemon Frisk yelling at her.

Then again, as she gave him a light kiss on the mouth, she expected he'd yell at her for that anyway.

What she had not expected, however, was the stallion suddenly leaning in, and taking the little stolen kiss to a whole new level.

After about half a minute, she pulled back, gasping. Lemon Frisk blinked, and looked at her.

"Misty?" he asked, looking somewhat dumbfounded. "Did you just..."

"Woah," Misty said. "You know, I expected worse. The taste, I mean."

"Did you just kiss me?"

"I could ask you the same thing," Misty said. She frowned. "Blossom Tree?"

Lemon Frisk looked away and nodded, his expression oddly mellow.

Misty couldn't help but smile. "Sorry. I just... wanted to try that. Didn't know you'd—"

Lemon Frisk shook his head, and smiled back. "It was... nice."

"Next time, though, don't forget I need to breathe," Misty remarked.

"Next time, maybe try when I'm actually conscious?" Lemon threw back.

Misty looked away. "Sorry."

"Also, Blossom Tree easily did a full minute," Lemon Frisk said, smiling slyly. "We timed it once."

"Seriously?" Misty looked up at him, blinking. She frowned. "Wait, did you just tell me to practice more... at kissing?"

"Maybe," Lemon Frisk said, turning back to the door. "Try it again when I'm conscious sometime, and find out. For now though, open the door, please?"

"Uh, right."

"I got some news," Lemon Frisk said as she opened the door. "I talked to Vector Field."

Misty tilted her head. "Him? Why?" she asked, as they walked inside. She walked into her bedroom, and flopped down onto the bed.

"Well, he'll probably leave soon to make contact with Hayden and the Slags."

"Oh. That," Misty said, lazily tilting her head towards him, without lifting it from the bed.

"Also, well, as you remarked this morning, we seem to keep coming back here..."

Misty sighed. "Well, about that... maybe it's not so bad."

Lemon raised his poor lonesome eyebrow at that. "Oh?"

"I... talked to Winter Gale, and, he's kinda right. I abandoned these people. They need me here, Lemon." She stared at her pillow, which had been pushed into a corner when it had been sneakily substituted by Lemon Frisk's hoof yet again the previous night. "I think it might be nice, to have some place to come back to. I felt so lost, out there..."

"Well. That's convenient," Lemon Frisk said, smiling. "One of the things Vector apparently still does as Overstallion is taking care of housing arrangements."

"Well yeah, everypony knows—" Misty's head shot up. "Wait, you mean... for us?"

Lemon Frisk just nodded, and smiled. "You know, I may want to try this whole family thing again. Last I remember, it was pretty nice."

Misty didn't reply. She got up and closed her bedroom door. Seeing as he was quite clearly conscious now, she decided she needed to practice more at something.


Footnote: Level Up! Does anyone have a convenient level detector? We lost track of Lemon's.
New Perk: Knots Untied: It took you a week, or, arguably, about two centuries, but it seems you're finally ready to let go of the past and start anew. You are less prone to zoning out for random flashbacks in the middle of the day, which is probably a good thing, out there in the Wastes.

Author's Note:

All right, so, I caved in. For anyone who wants to know what happens right after this, and doesn't mind Sexy Ghoul Time... here you go :facehoof: